Bulkheads
All ships in Elite use bulkheads to protect their hulls. This is your main form of defense should your shields fail. There are three general types of bulkheads, in increasing order of protection:
The more heavily armored bulkheads are also heavier, however. It's unclear if this affects ship handling, but it may in different versions of the game. It most certainly increases the ship's mass and therefore cuts into its jump-range when traveling between systems.
In addition, there are two types of specialty bulkheads:
- Mirrored Surface Composite, for protecting against energy weapons
- Reactive Surface Composite, for protecting against projectile and missile weapons.